The Rock
By Victoria Sosnovtseva
Imagine you are the first human being on earth, thousands of discoveries and revolutions lie ahead of you, but you are cold, and hungry and so tired of eating moldy fruit. As you are contemplating where to look food ­ Domino's hasn't been invented yet ­ you stub your toe on a flint stone; aww it' really painful! You pick the damn thing up: it's just a rock. Suddenly, out the corner of your eye you see you see the sweetest, cuddliest bunny crossing your path. You look at the bunny, the rock, bunnies, rock, bunnies, rock; and suddenly the rock has become something more: it has become a deadly weapon. The rock still looks the same, feels the same, smells the same, so what made the difference? A single idea.
If I asked you whether the world has become more violent since they days of the Flintstones, you would probably say yes, why wouldn't you? In the 21st century alone, we have seen 9/11, the war in Iraq, the genocide in Darfur, just to name a few. Recently however men like Steven Pinker have challenged the media promoted illusion that the world is getting more violent. Look at the world of Homer, the cradle of western civilization, where Odysseus had all the men his wife Penelope had slept with, murdered. And what about the old testament, it teems with bloodshed! There was Adam, and Eve and their two sons Cain and Abel. Now Cain had a tiff with his brother so he bashed his brains out. That adds up to a homicide rate of what....25%?
I remember, as a kid sitting on my great uncle's knee and looking up into the face of this big fearless soldier. There was nothing that could scare him, or so I thought. Then one day he told me about how during his days as a comissar in Afghanistan he watched in silence as soldiers slaughtered an innocent 12 year old Afghani boy. I heard his voice quiver, and I saw that he was afraid. Why was he afraid? He was afraid because he saw how we, as a human race had found a way to mix up the beautiful ideas with mass murder.
However,there is hope for us yet. It is human nature to value ideas above weapons. In a German school shooting a teacher, not a revolutionary, soldier or superhero, went up to the shooter and pulled down his mask. So ingrained were his ideas of respect, solidarity and common humanity that he chose to risk his life for the lives of his student. The terrorist couldn't shoot. Almost as importantly the teacher had understood that that behind every weapon, is a person, that can decide not to use it. The rock is not a weapon until you pick it up and see a bunny.